Google Forms vs. Microsoft Excel

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Forms
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Google Forms is an app for creating forms and surveys, and is part of Google Apps for Work. The product focuses on ease of use; the interface is similar to a document editor, with drop down lists of options and drag and drop question re-ordering. Users can embed images and video into surveys. Users can also program the question flow with custom logic. Google sends users basic summaries of the survey results automatically, or users can export the raw survey results data and analyze it via…N/A
Microsoft Excel
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application available as part of Microsoft 365 (Office 365), or standalone, in cloud-based and on-premise editions.
$6.99
per month
Pricing
Google FormsMicrosoft Excel
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Excel with Microsoft 365
$6.99
per month
Excel for 1 PC or Mac
$139.99
perpetual license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google FormsMicrosoft Excel
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google FormsMicrosoft Excel
Considered Both Products
Google Forms
Chose Google Forms
Even though Google Forms doesn't offer much customization, its survey logic options are more comprehensive than HubSpot's, so we chose Google Forms even though we already had HubSpot messaging integrated into our customer communication workflows. It also helped that all …
Microsoft Excel
Chose Microsoft Excel
While other products have been useful for being easily sharable or free, Microsoft Excel handles more data with easier to use functions, pivot tables, graphing, and formulas than all that I have used. Google Sheets is a close second but has not been able to handle the large …
Features
Google FormsMicrosoft Excel
Survey Format & Appearance
Comparison of Survey Format & Appearance features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
6.6
122 Ratings
19% below category average
Microsoft Excel
-
Ratings
Survey templates7.7113 Ratings00 Ratings
Themes6.0111 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom logo/branding6.199 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Content
Comparison of Survey Content features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
8.1
120 Ratings
5% below category average
Microsoft Excel
-
Ratings
Changes to live survey9.0114 Ratings00 Ratings
Question design help7.297 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple question types7.9119 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Logic
Comparison of Survey Logic features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
7.0
109 Ratings
17% below category average
Microsoft Excel
-
Ratings
Survey logic flexibility7.0109 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Survey Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
8.4
121 Ratings
4% above category average
Microsoft Excel
-
Ratings
Response tracking8.2119 Ratings00 Ratings
Data export8.1115 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports7.9112 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports9.285 Ratings00 Ratings
Analytics8.493 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Administration & Security
Comparison of Survey Administration & Security features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
8.1
115 Ratings
6% below category average
Microsoft Excel
-
Ratings
Access controls8.0112 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance8.289 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Distribution
Comparison of Survey Distribution features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
7.7
89 Ratings
5% below category average
Microsoft Excel
-
Ratings
Vendor-offered crowdsourcing7.941 Ratings00 Ratings
Respondent restrictions7.687 Ratings00 Ratings
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User Ratings
Google FormsMicrosoft Excel
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(116 ratings)
9.3
(76 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(3 ratings)
9.8
(7 ratings)
Usability
9.2
(56 ratings)
8.4
(22 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(48 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
3.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google FormsMicrosoft Excel
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Google Forms is great for simple surveys, such as quick polls, but any logic beyond conditional pages is not supported. Google Forms is best used when the survey participants have and are permitted to use a Google Account to fill out the form; we ran into issues with hospital IT departments. I don't believe there's a better free tool out there than Google Forms, though.
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Microsoft
I don't really know another program as powerful as Excel. I've used Google Doc programs but do not feel they come close. So far, anytime I've needed a table of some sort for data, whether it's budget oriented or information off a survey, the best system has been Excel. We do web audits on occasion and we create an Excel worksheet featuring every URL of the pages we're auditing, notes, data about the content, information about files attached to the page and other information to help us determine what pages need updating, deleting or otherwise. We also use Excel primarily to export our Google Analytics to in order for us to create reports for clients that need to see specific information about their traffic.
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Pros
Google
  • Live results: When a user completes the form the results are added instantly.
  • Easy to create: Google Forms has a simple interface that allows for a wide range of question types. Google will even try to guess the question type based on the question (but this can be overridden).
  • Answers export to Google Sheets: It is easy to have each response to your form add a row to a Google Sheet, allowing for further analysis or processing.
  • Ability to automatically collect email addresses within a domain: If you have a form that has been shared with users in your domain, you can set it to automatically collect the users' email addresses without them needing to type it in. Makes checking whether all students have completed the form easy.
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Microsoft
  • It is very good at embedded formulas and tying cells to one another
  • It allows me to compare deals terms on a side-by-side basis and talk my clients through it easily.
  • It is very helpful as well in terms of allowing me to filter/sort results in many different ways depending on what specific information I am most interested in prioritizing.
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Cons
Google
  • Sometimes finding the output -- a Google Sheet with all responses-- is a little difficult. It's also sometimes confusing to figure out how to get back into the Google Form Survey itself.
  • As always, sharing among an institutional Google account and your personal Google account can be frustrating. You have to make a copy and can't share across the two different accounts very easily.
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Microsoft
  • Excel offers collaboration features that allow multiple users to work on the same spreadsheet, but managing changes made by different users can be challenging. Excel could improve its features by offering more granular control, better tracking of changes, and more robust conflict resolution tools.
  • Itcan be a barrier to productivity when importing and exporting data from other applications or file formats. To improve its features, it should offer better support for standard file formats and more robust error handling and reporting tools.
  • Excel can be challenging for finance students and working professionals, but it can be improved by offering more robust tutorials, better documentation, and more user communities and support forums.
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
I will definitely renew my use of Google Forms because I really like the ease of use and the number of tools that Google forms provide. I also love that I can administer a test in real-time and get results in a timely manner
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Microsoft
Excel remains the industry standard for spreadsheets and has maintained simple and straight-forward formula writing methods. Although there is a learning curve to do more complex calculations, there are countless help sites and videos on the Internet for almost any need.
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Usability
Google
Overall ease of use for staff, volunteers, and adult learners, and easy to get reports and to share reports via Sheets. As a free tool, it does more than expected. Easy to change the look and brand it to your organization, or just make it more fun, depending on what you want to use it for.
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Microsoft
I'm giving it a 7 because it is my go to. But the fact other prefer Google Sheets when working with a team does get irritating. I've used the online version of Microsoft Excel that other teams can get into and it still seems behind Google Sheets. It's a little clanky and slow? If that's even a term.
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Reliability and Availability
Google
In the years I've used GoogleForms I've never ran into any issues with the reliability or availability. Google is a gigantic company with essentially limitless resources which makes it very easy to trust that I will continue to be able to enjoy the same reliability I've come to know and expect from GoogleForms
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Microsoft
I have rarely, if ever, had issues with its availability.
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Performance
Google
One of the things that comes as a benefit of the lack to create complex logic branching and truly custom design is that there isn't lot of room to bog down the software. GoogleForms has always loaded just as fast as my internet service and device would allow it. I'm not sure about front end integrations or integrations into the form itself, as I've never explored it, but on the backend, I've never had any issues with integrations channeling from GoogleForms from the GoogleForms's end of things.
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Microsoft
Excel load and performs calculations immediately. It integrate well with all Microsoft Office applications and does not slow them down.
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Support Rating
Google
We haven't used much official support for Google Forms. However, because it is so widely used, there are a ton of articles and guides available online to help administrators of varying technical abilities to work through problems that arise. Additionally, Google provides an official support forum where there are discussions with other users as well as Google developers that can help address issues if needed.
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Microsoft
I have not had to use it often, but it is good.
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Implementation Rating
Google
Google Forms doesn't really require "implementation": simply log into GDrive and create a survey! You can configure settings per survey to, for example, automatically write responses to a GSheet.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Google
Although both platforms offer similar functionalities, Google Form has a personal advantage and it is the impeccable integration with the different applications of the Google suite, this allows to make use of all of them in a transparent way, which in the work environment allows to perform work efficiently and without affecting the quality of it.
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Microsoft
Out of Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, IBM SPSS, and Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel is by far the most common tool used for anything data-related across organizations. Accordingly, our organization has also implemented Microsoft Excel as a first-step tool. We recently adopted Microsoft Power BI (the free version), and use it occasionally (mostly for creating dashboards), but it is less commonly understood by stakeholders across our organization and by our clients. Accordingly, Microsoft Excel is more user-friendly and because of its popularity, we can easily look up how to do things in the program online. Google Sheets is a comparable alternative to Microsoft Excel, but because it's cloud-based and we have sensitive data that needs to be protected, we chose against using this software. Finally, a few users (including myself) have access to and utilize IBM's SPSS. For my role, it's a helpful tool to do more rigorous analyses. However, because of its cost and limited functionality as a simple spreadsheet, we only use it for more complex analyses.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Google
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
N/A I was not involved in this process.
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Scalability
Google
GoogleForms lacks the ability for complex logic branching and the ability to truly design it in a custom manner. It's pretty obvious when you land on a GoogleForm that it is in fact a GoogleForm. This rating solely reflects the lack of flexibility which in turn makes it something that wouldn't usually be scaled. That being said, if needing to scale a simple solution, GoogleForms would be up for the job.
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Microsoft
Each user can use it to whatever level of expertise they have. It remains the same so users can contribute to another's work regardless of whether they have more or less expertise
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Return on Investment
Google
  • High positive impact and return of investment; easy to use and seamlessly integrated with current Google Drive and Suite
  • Ability to create surveys on demand and quickly, saving time and energy
  • Easy to train others in using Google Forms so that there is not a bottleneck of knowledge
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Microsoft
  • Excel has positively impacted the business as it has increased our efficiency.
  • It also saves us the time that we would have spent on making the calculations that it does for us.
  • Since it works on all devices and is compatible with both Windows and Mac, we do not have to invest in any other alternative.
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ScreenShots